“Skin like a tree, green hair?” he says, like it is a question. He is checking to see if we are looking at the same creature. One with no Glamour. “I can see her.”
“I want you to see me.”
Marley and I both startle at the sound of her voice. She sounds like one of us, like any other student from our school.
Who happens to be supernatural.
“I’m a Dryad,” she goes on, cheerful and unafraid of us. She moves closer, fluid and graceful, like a leaf moving in the breeze. “I saved you from the Ceasg.”
She smiles, a candid grin. Marley and I look at one another and quickly look away again, neither of us exactly sure of what to do with the strange new creature we are faced with – even though we have met with a great many strange Hidden Folk thanks to our recent quest.
“Thank you,” I eventually manage to force out.
It is obviously the correct thing to say, as she lights up all over and moves even closer, cocking her head to one side as she takes the two of us in.
“You’re welcome. I’m Alona. Can I be in that little book, please? I did help you escape from the
big house.”
I gape at her. “You?”
She laughs, delighted by my surprise. Then, before Marley and even I have a chance to process, she transforms in an instant into a handful of leaves.
Then, into an oak tree.
Chapter Five
An Old, Strange Friend
“You can turn into a tree?”
I feel a little slow as I say the words, but it’s been an eventful day and I’m slightly overwhelmed. The tree morphs into leaves and then back into Alona,
the girl with green hair and moss between her toes.
She does a cartwheel, still utterly delighted by our stunned reactions.
“I’m a Dryad,” she repeats, in a tone that suggests we ought to know exactly what that means. “I want to be in your little book. It’s a book of Hidden Folk, isn’t it? I can’t really Glamour, but I’d still like—”
“You were the tree by our window,” I interrupt, still trying to understand her sudden entrance into our story. “The one we climbed down?”
She nods, eyes wide and alert. “You said you needed to get out so…”
“So, you moved from the front garden to our window?” Marley asks, his voice frayed at the edges. He is as overwhelmed as I am. “You were the tree.”
Alona blinks and puzzles over the two of us for a moment. “I am not sure what is not making sense for you both.”
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s been… a day. And we really should be going.”
I throw Marley a wordless look and he nods, almost imperceptibly. We start to edge back up towards the trees, ready to return to the house.
“Oh, I see,” Alona says, a little despondently. “But how are you going to get back in without me?”
I can see by Marley’s body language that the realisation has hit both of us at the same moment. The tree will no longer be next to the window.
“He said you can fly,” Alona adds, addressing me. She crouches low and looks up at me, as if she’s completely fascinated. I find it just a bit too eerie.
“Can you?”
I’m not supposed to speak to anyone outside of the family about my powers. I should deny it. I should laugh and say that she overheard us joking.
“You’re a witch.”
She speaks the words with wonder. I like the way she says it. I have not been feeling that attached to the word lately, sometimes even anxious about using it, so I like hearing it. I sometimes don’t feel I have the right to use the word ‘witch’. Opal has the right. Mum has the right. Leanna has the right.
I don’t know if I do.
“I’m learning,” I say finally.
“And the things you write about in that little book? That’s part of the learning?”
“Well, sort of,” I say. “It’s kind of like a glossary.
Of all the different Hidden Folk. My grandfather started it.”
“Are there Dryads?”
“No,” Marley says, nervously looking her up and down. “You’re the first.”
